City Lore Turns 40 and Shares its Archive with the Library of Congress
Preserving Urban Folk Culture: City Lore's Mission of Cultural Equity
City Lore is a pioneering organization dedicated to documenting, preserving, and celebrating the rich urban folk culture of New York City. Founded in 1985, the organization has been at the forefront of promoting cultural equity and social justice through innovative educational programs, exhibitions, and community collaborations. The organization's mission is to foster New York City—and America’s—living cultural heritage through education and public programs in service of cultural equity and social justice. City Lore encompasses a gallery space on New York’s Lower East Side, performances, lectures, the Peoples Hall of fame Awards, a POEMobile that projects poems on to walls and buildings, and extensive education programs in all five boroughs.
City Lore’s 38 years of in-depth research and public programming with Puerto Rican as well as Latino music and cultures was established by the late ethnomusicologist Dr. Roberta Singer, PhD., continues under the direction of folklorist Elena Martinez. Summer 2024 we will launch the NEH funded SOMOS BORICUAS, a two-week summer institute for K-12 educators from across the country. This institute will offer educators learning tools, resources, lesson ideas, and historical and social content for teaching about immigration and migration experience. Four previous NEH institutes have been successfully directed by City Lore on the topic of exploring Muslim Cultures through the Arts.
As the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, City Lore has a long history of recognizing the form as urban folklore and has worked closely with hip hop documentarians, such as Henry Chalfant who directed the award-winning City Lore film, From Mambo to Hip-Hop: A South Bronx Tale. Since its inception, City Lore has been committed to finding ways to give diverse poets voice, finding the venues and formats for them to convey their artistry to their own communities and to the city at large, often finding new and innovative ways to communicate across languages, and in doing so, celebrating the poetry of everyday life.
In 2021, we initiated the Creative Traditions Network of folk and community-based artists. We meaningfully and collaboratively document, present, and advocate for NYC’s grass roots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories and histories, places and traditions. New York City is one of the nation’s richest and most diverse centers of folk culture. By embracing different aesthetics for the creation of art, we seek to democratize the arts, and foster a wider range of communities, artists, and forms of artistic expression. We are an official Smithsonian Affiliate (one of six in NYC), and a full copy of our archives is being acquired by the Library of Congress.
Examples of our activities include:
● A rich education program that offers in-school and after-school, culturally-based residencies which reach over 10,000 public school students each year.
● Place Matters, a program whose mission is to advocate for the protection of New York City's historically and culturally significant community places.
● An exhibit curated by City Lore’s Cultural Ambassador Sandra Bell, the J’Ouvert Immersive Experience as part of her Ambassador ship in 2023. For nearly two centuries, J'Ouvert "break of day" processions have marked the opening of Carnival in Trinidad. Held in the pre dawn hours of Carnival Monday, J’Ouvert evolved from19th century Canboulay festival—the night time celebrations where the formerly enslaved gathered to masquerade, sing, and dance in commemoration of their emancipation––and from the 1883 Canboulay riots when revelers fought the British who sought to shut down the celebrations. The exhibition created by Sandra about the festivities is remarkable in its own right, in addition to the fact that it was hosted at Lefferts Historic House in Prospect Park,a building constructed by slaves. The venue’s first exhibit after their renovation was this City Lore-curated J’ouver texhibition which was extended for an additional two months, and attracted over 5,000 visitors.
● An exhibit curated by Cultural Ambassador Camila Bryce La Porte, The Calling: The Transformative Power of African American Doll and Puppet Making in the City Lore Gallery. The exhibit includes dolls and puppets created by a group of 26 nationally acclaimed multi media artists from the African Diaspora, who came of age in communities in the United States during the height of the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements. On display in the City Lore Gallery for six months, this landmark exhibition garnered local and national press coverage.
● A wide range of community-centered exhibitions and performances.
To learn more about the City Lore Archive visit: https://citylore.org/archives/
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